NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers captured a stunning photograph of one of nature’s most elusive phenomena from the International Space Station on July 3, 2025, initially believing she had documented a sprite, a rare form of atmospheric lightning, only to discover she had captured something even more extraordinary: a gigantic jet.

“Nichole Ayers caught a rare and spectacular form of a TLE from the International Space Station — a gigantic jet,” confirmed Dr. Burcu Kosar, Principal Investigator of NASA’s Spritacular project. The discovery represents one of the clearest views of this atmospheric phenomenon ever documented from space.

    • Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@fedia.io
      146·
      11 days ago

      From the website:

      Gigantic jets are a powerful type of electrical discharge that extends from the top of a thunderstorm into the upper atmosphere. They are typically observed by chance — often spotted by airline passengers or captured unintentionally by ground-based cameras aimed at other phenomena. Gigantic jets appear when the turbulent conditions at towering thunderstorm tops allow for lightning to escape the thunderstorm, propagating upwards toward space. They create an electrical bridge between the tops of the clouds (~20 km) and the upper atmosphere (~100 km), depositing a significant amount of electrical charge.

      • jaybone@lemmy.zipEnglish
        33·
        10 days ago

        Thank you! Can’t believe I had to scroll this far for an explanation. So then, are all those other patches of light also electrical storms?

        Also what is a sprite in this context?

        • Boddhisatva@lemmy.worldEnglish
          33·
          10 days ago

          From the link above:

          Sprites, on the other hand, are one of the most commonly observed types of TLEs [Transient Luminous Events] — brief, colorful flashes of light that occur high above thunderstorms in the mesosphere, around 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. Unlike gigantic jets, which burst upward directly from thundercloud tops, sprites form independently, much higher in the atmosphere, following powerful lightning strikes. They usually appear as a reddish glow with intricate shapes resembling jellyfish, columns, or carrots and can span tens of kilometers across. Sprites may also be accompanied or preceded by other TLEs, such as Halos and ELVEs (Emissions of Light and Very Low Frequency perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources), making them part of a larger and visually spectacular suite of high-altitude electrical activity.

        • Deme@sopuli.xyz
          7·
          10 days ago

          The other patches of light are cities. Lightning isn’t as grainy looking. The exposure time of the shot is short so the image doesn’t blur as the station moves, so the chances are stacked against getting two flashes in the one image.